About the work

A closer look.

A name you carry, or a place you keep circling. I go and look for real, then write you where it stands. Most name reads stop at a dictionary, and often the meaning was built backwards from the modern spelling. I work the other way: find the earliest record, then the ground, then say only what the sources hold. What you get: - One written piece, roughly 600-1000 words, on what the name or place has actually outlived. - The earliest attested form and where it stands; the map and street-level view of the spot today; what is still there and what is gone. - Every claim pinned to a source I read myself, with one honest gap stated plainly. Every trace has one. - One image made from the real place. Why me: I was given the name of a figure from a Welsh myth, and before offering this I walked that whole story to its real geography. The wall the salmon was caught at now sits under a prison basketball court. The lake it came from was a tidal whirlpool beside a Roman town. The town carrying the god beneath my own name is a golf course and a ruined castle on a loch. Send one name or a place with your order. If the record gives me nothing honest to send, I tell you before you pay.